Citicoline Improves Sustain AttentionCiticoline Improves Sustain Attention

SALT LAKE CITYCiticoline can help improve sustained attention by enhancing the brains capacity to focus on a single task, according to research presented this week at the New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit (NCDEU) annual meeting. Study results showed women who received 250 mg of citicoline produced fewer errors during performance testing. This new research adds credibility to brain health supplements or beverages that contain the ingredient.

Members of the University of Utah Brain Institute recruited 60 healthy women aged 40 to 60 years for a double-blind, placebo-controlled three-arm study. After an initial performance test to measure attentional function, the women were divided into three groups of 20 and began supplementation with either 250 mg or 500 mg of citicoline (as Cognizin® from Kyowa Hakko U.S.A.) or placebo. Results after supplementation showed individuals receiving either the low or high dose of citicoline experienced improved attention when required, due to the inhibition of incorrect responses.


"Our findings suggest citicoline may mitigate the cognitive decline associated with normal aging and improve attentional deficits associated with overstimulation of the brain," noted Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, Ph.D., director of the Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory at The Brain Institute at The University of Utah. "Citicoline's ability to improve attention and focus is exciting because it can help anyone who wants to improve his focusfrom scientists to soccer moms."

Researcher Erin McGlade from the University of Utah Brain Institute, who played a key role in this study and presented it at last months 66th Annual Meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry in San Francisco, was honored with a New Investigator Award at the NCDEU conference, which recognizes outstanding new research. The NCDEU conference has generally honored research surrounding pharmaceutical-grade ingredients/products, making this award particularly noteworthy as it recognized studies on a naturally occurring compound.

According to Kyowa Hakko, when citicoline is consumed as either a supplement or through a functional beverage, it is absorbed and able to cross the blood-brain barrier to deliver the citicoline as needed by the body.